Friday, 11 July 2014

5D4N Cambodia Feb 2014 : Phnom Penh

After a super long tiring day the previous day spent at Angkor temple tour and horse riding, we woke up at 6 am to catch 7.30am coach to travel from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh.

#OurHolidayIsMoreTiringThanWorking

Distance from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh is 314km just like Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We wondered why the former journey time was almost twice than the latter. Thank god for the smooth expressway Malaysia has.

We booked Mekong Express bus online before our trip to secure a seat. Different from Malaysia's coach, Mekong Express bus provides breakfast (1 bun and 1 donut), one mineral water and free wifi. Not only that, they even provide a small cool towel when you get on the coach. How good their services was!

The night before, we were planning to catch up our sleep on the coach since it takes 6-7 hours to reach our destination. We totally regretted our decision due to the rocky uneven roads. After our first but only stop, they switched on the TV and played Avatars! This would be my third time watching after first time on theater and again with 3D. Just nice when it finished, we reached Phnom Penh!

We finally reached Phnom Penh around 2 in the afternoon. Took a tuktuk to our City Centre Hotel. After settling down, we walked around the vicinity to look for lunch before we head for our evening cruise.

Green curry (left) and red curry (right)

This is my favourite dish in Cambodia! Amok fish! It tasted a little like our otah fish but less spicy and bigger fish meat! I am actually swallowing my saliva now lololo

Here we were at our Crocodile Sunset Cruise! Yea... There was no crocodile... it is just the company name.. How disappointing is that..

We started our 1 hour 15 minutes on our sunset cruise on the south along the Phnom Penh Riverfront and North East over the Mekong Delta.

We were discussing where to have dinner during lunch while browsing through the guide we gotten from the hotel, then we saw this! I know Singapore has a branch but is way too expensive to have such experience. The prices here was so much cheaper relatively so we decided to give it a try~

Dine in the Dark is a fine dining concept restaurant in which there are no lights inside the dining area. This pitch-dark restaurant provides guests an unique experience to discover local Khmer or international dishes without seeing them! Without the use of sight, hence heightening all non-visual senses to indulge in a culinary guessing game.

The whole place was lit in purple to soften your sight so as to prep you for pitch dark later on.

Dishes will only be revealed only after the dinner. Believe the staff was explaining the dishes.

One more thing, this concept has a social purpose and supports the principles of equal employment and job opportunity. Waiters and waitresses are actually visually impaired. This is a form of raising awareness about the daily challenges that a person with vision impairment may face.

The only two questions the restaurant would ask you are:
1) Do you have any dietary restriction?
2) Local Khmer or International cuisine?

No bags nor any lighted devices are allowed to bring it with us. We were introduced to our waiter. We stood in single line and placed our hands on the person in front of us with the waiter leading us towards our table. We were told to close our eyes, trust and follow the person in front of us. After a narrow curvy flights of stair which led us to the second level and going through few layers of thick curtain, we finally reached our table. At this time, we opened our eyes. It was darker than pitch dark, we could not even see our fingers, not even we put our finger close to our eyes. Thinking that our eyes sight would adjust to the absolute darkness and regain some sight but it did not happen.

"Basically, there is no difference between opening and closing our eyes"

What even more stressful was the glasses which we used for drinking water was actually real wine glasses...The waiter then gave us clear orientation of what was on our table. "On your right, are the spoon and knife. On your left, are the fork. There is a glass for your water on your top right. Also, there is a rose on your left. Happy Valentine Day~!" I went "awwww" when I heard the "happy valentine day" lol

The waiter slowly served us appetizer one by one and he could remember our names easily. He usually would call out our name before he serves. Without our sight, we were all very messy and made alot of squeaking noises between our cutlery and the plates.

"Hey I think I just ate a bread kind of bread"
"Tomatoes! Tomatoes!"
"Why I have not eat the potato yet?"
"I finish the food already anot ah?"
"WHY I KEEP EATING VEGETABLE ONE???"

LOL!! Recalling the conversation we had during the course really made me laughing my ass off..

After appetizers, next starter, followed by soup, then main course and lastly desserts. It was a five course meal.

We were brought down by the waiter after the dinner. Surprisingly, our sight came back to us slowly and comfortably. This is what purple lighting is for! When we finally gotten our phones, we then realized we spent nearly 2 hours for this 5 course meal. Probably due to all the funny conversation and singing session we had with the waiter and the table next to us.

Many would think that by dining in the complete darkness, taste buds will become more senstivie to all flavours and textures. However, this logic does not apply to us. We all went "Oooohhhhh" when the staff revealed the dishes to us. I am not revealing here to spoil the fun =D